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Monthly Archives: July 2014

This is a review of “Cress” by Marissa Meyer. It is book 3 in The Lunar Chronicles. It follows on from “Scarlet“.

As this book is a part of a series, the following review may reveal some details of the previous novel. Do not read if you intend to read this series in the future and don’t want to know of any potential plot spoilers.

Cress is a lonely Lunar teen. She’s not like other Lunar people. She’s a shell. This means that she does not possess the Lunar gift that allows Lunars to manipulate the bioelectricity of other humans. She is also immune to the “glamour” that this gift produces. This means that she can see the true nature of other Lunars through the facades that they often project, and even more dangerously, she cannot be manipulated against her will. On Lunar, shells are taken at birth and slaughtered. But Cress herself is evidence that this is not quite the case. She lives in a satellite, at the behest of her cruel Mistress, Sybil Mara, head thaumaturge to Queen Levana. Cress is an expert hacker and programmer and seeing value in this, Sybil moved her to a location that was closer to Earth, in order to allow Cress access to the many Earthen satellite, camera and security systems.

Cress is lonely. She hates being forced to spy on the Earthen people. She even attempted to make contact with Prince Kai to warn him about Levana (in “Cinder“). Instead, she made contact with Cinder, who rushed to the ball and ended up being arrested. She hasn’t given up hope of finally getting out if the satellite one day. She’s done a lot of research into, and keeping track of Cinder and her band of outlaws. She’s particularly taken with Captain Carswell Thorne.

Who is just as arrogant and superficial as ever. Cinder is still trying to formulate a plan to overthrow Levana, and stop Kai from making the biggest mistake of his young life. Wolf is adjusting to normal life and he and Scarlet are completely taken with one another. Scarlet is still mourning the loss of her grandmother, and has vowed to continue her life’s work, by aiding Cinder. And Dr Erland is still awaiting Cinder in Africa…

I really enjoyed this book. I actually did not want to finish this book because I know I have to wait for the next one. I enjoyed the character of Cress, and the character development of Carswell. I found the dialogue to be witty, and reading this book was an overall pleasing experience. As I said, I am really looking forward to “Winter”, the next installment, which is out next year. I have also discovered, whilst checking out Marissa’s website, that there are short stories set in the Cinder-verse. Woohoo 🙂